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>>>Characters – 34/40

Development: 17/20
-Cliched characters, but they fit the story.

Interaction: 17/20
-Not impressive, but perfectly adequate.


>>>Description – 28/30

Character: 14/15
-Ugh. Gruesome, but excellent.

Setting: 14/15
-Excellent.


>>>Style - 16/20
-An excellent and well told story. It is, however, *highly* unoriginal.


>>>Plot - 30/35

Pace: 10/10
-I was hooked!

Content: 20/25
-As mentioned, the concept is highly unoriginal, and the archetypes you use are common ones (fog, darkness, etc). But it's not bad at all.


>>>Mechanics - 17/25

Grammar/Spelling: 5/10
-I took off points here for the constant tense changing. It's a big issue.

Sentence Structure/Variety: 13/15
-You don't always use the best adjectives or sentence structures to suit the scene. When writing emotional, violent, or suspenseful scenes pay close attention to your structure and make sure you aren't getting in your own way.


Your Overall Grade: 125/150, or 83%

~ rbie

Lorehound

through and through.

23-Jul-2008 01:32:05 - Last edited on 23-Jul-2008 01:32:43 by Orbestro

Notes:

The problem with using the present tense in a story is that its very hard to use consistently; almost all stories are told in the past tense, anything else feels unnatural, even if we’re trying to use present. I’ll try to list as many of the errors as I can in my corrections.

By the middle of the second page you’re using largely the past tense. You use it much more consistently than you had used the present, but still, you really should’ve used it from the beginning.

When you’re narrating heavily from Noah’s perspective, you tend to go into present, and when you’re going into a more omniscient mode you tend to go past. This may be partially intentional – if it is, it does not work. Changing of tenses needs to be something that you use cautiously and purposefully. For example, in the prologue, about the book found in the wilderness – present tense is appropriate. If you were switching viewpoints to that of the monster, a tense change could work well to emphasize the change.

But in “Nightmare” it changes constantly and sporadically. You need to choose a tense, choose a viewpoint, and stick to it!


Corrections:

>Chapter II

You have almost no grammar or spelling mistakes, but you mix up tense quite a bit. If there is no other explanation provided for a correction, then it’s because it is a place where you change tense. The word in error will be *marked* like so.

“Lily's face *dropped*.”

“She *said* suddenly.”

“She'd *jumped* away before I had a chance to respond.” – now this isn’t technically incorrect, but it still breaks up the flow and consistency of the story.

“…one by one placing them in my pack I constantly *told* myself how much of a fool I *was*…”

~ rbie

Lorehound

through and through.

23-Jul-2008 01:34:40

23-Jul-2008 01:35:27

23-Jul-2008 01:35:45

23-Jul-2008 01:36:01

"I know what it means," I declare.

"We have to get out of here."

A space between lines of dialogue is used when the person speaking the dialogue changes. I assume that it** Noah saying both these lines, so consider deleting the space between them.

____________

Whew! That's the end of it! I was very critical of you, but honestly I enjoyed the story. Horror is not my genre of choice but this was a good story.

~ rbie

Lorehound

through and through.

23-Jul-2008 01:36:53

I'm having the exact same problem with a story I'm writing at the moment .

At the beginning of many chapters I introduce a new character through an introspective scene where they complain about their life and set the stage for the entrance of the main character. In these scenes, past tense looks silly, but the rest of the story looks odd if I tell it in the present.

What I'm going to have to do is kind of cordon off the first-person present tense section into their little interlude things between the chapters, to explain the change of tense.

~ rbie

Lorehound

through and through.

24-Jul-2008 03:26:57